The recently agreed to contract between the Rockford police union and the city appears to be a classic example of a negotiation in which both sides compromised to reach a deal everyone can live with.

Given some of the television ads the police union bought during the spring mayoral election campaign, we had expected negotiations to be much uglier than they were, so we’re pleasantly surprised that they went as smoothly as they did.

Smooth, of course, is a relative term. It is a retroactive contract, giving officers a 2 percent raise for work done last year. It was a long, slow process to arrive at a deal that runs through 2014.

There was plenty of fiery rhetoric from both sides about geopolicing, staffing and other issues late last year and this spring. And it seems as if the police union and the administration have been at odds since Larry Morrissey became mayor in 2005.

But aside from some harsh words a few months ago, both sides kept negotiations in the meeting room and did not make much of a fuss in the media.

The three-year deal is encouraging, but more encouraging is that there finally will be progress toward geographic policing, the topic of those TV ads in the spring. The contract allows the city to create a pilot geopolicing district, which could be running by Jan. 1.

Geographic policing is a way of deploying resources throughout the city. It would split the current centralized police force into districts, each responsible for certain portions of the city.

Geopolicing would get Rockford police out of the Public Safety Building, which is owned by the city and Winnebago County and costs $1.3 million a year to maintain. The county wants to vacate the building as soon as possible, leaving the city with most of the maintenance costs.

Eventually, the goal would be for Rockford to have three district stations, one each in the east, west and central parts of the city.

Under a geopolicing strategy, officers would work the same area every day, building relationships and developing a problem-solving — as opposed to a reactive — approach to fighting crime.

We think it can be a solution to Rockford’s historically high crime rate. Despite the many wonderful amenities here — parks, museums, shopping, health care, etc. — there are too many crime victims in the city.

The status quo obviously has not helped. New strategies and approaches must be adopted.

The police union had opposed geopolicing because it didn’t think Rockford had enough officers to do it right and because it was concerned that 12-hour shifts, rather than the current 10-hour shifts, would lead to fatigue among officers. New officers have been hired and we’d like to point out that sheriff’s deputies have been on 12-hour shifts for at least three decades, and fatigue has not been a problem.

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We could quibble, of course, about why the 28 officers who will volunteer to be part of the geopolicing pilot program should get a 1.5 percent pay bonus. Won’t they simply be doing their job, just like the officers who aren’t involved in the effort?

We also could question why, after at least four years of discussion about geopolicing, we still don’t know where the stations will be or how much they will cost to rent or buy and maintain.

There are plenty of vacant buildings all over town that could serve as police stations. It would be nice to see some of those empty relics put to good use. The recently purchased Fran Kral building downtown could be an option for a district headquarters.

The contract is pending City Council approval, which we hope will be routine.

We applaud the city and the union for finding common ground and look forward to more crime-fighting solutions.